Theatre Review: Noor Play Honours the Stand of WW2 Heroine


Volume 52 Number 28, November 19, 2022	ARCHIVE	HOME	JBCENTRE	SUBSCRIBE

Memorial Bust of Anti-Fascist Heroine Noor Inayat Khan in Gordon Square, central London

The play Noor by Azma Dar is running at the Southwark Playhouse, London, until November 26. Noor Inayat Khan, a descendent of the legendary Tipu Sultan and from a Sufi family, grew up in Paris to be a musician and writer of children's stories. Following the Nazi invasion of France, she moved to England, volunteered for the RAF, was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and sent back to occupied France as the first female wireless operator. With her network betrayed and destroyed, she nonetheless carried on her dangerous undercover work until she herself was betrayed and captured. Refusing to co-operate with her captors and revealing nothing, she was sent to Pforzheim Prison in Germany, cruelly shackled hand and foot for ten months, then moved to Dachau concentration camp, where she was separated from her fellow prisoners on account of her dark skin, and on the night of September 13, 1944, dreadfully abused by the sadist Commandant and shot dead. Her last and only word was Liberté! She was 30 years old. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre for her outstanding bravery.

The Kali Theatre production at the Southwark Playhouse, imaginatively directed by Poonam Brah, tells Noor's story and honours her heroism. As author Azma Dar says in her programme notes, the play is relevant to our own dangerous times. The production is quite brilliant. Direction, movement and the acting of the entire ensemble are outstanding. In particular, the performance of Anice Boparai as Noor is heart-wrenching, while the scenes with Caroline Faber as Vera Atkins, Noor's SOE handler in London, and Chris Porter, as Noor's German captor in Paris, and especially their later meeting at a War Crimes Tribunal investigation, are subtly and superbly acted. Laurence Saunders and Ellie Turner should also be mentioned. As war rages again in Europe, with the warmongering US, UK governments and their allies waging war against Russia to the last Ukrainian, expanding NATO control, threatening further death and destruction in Europe and beyond, Noor's heroic stand in the face of war and racism is certainly relevant and worthy of honour. This play at the Southwark Playhouse is a must see!